Christmas Valley Oregon 9-20, 21, 22-13 Desert ride

[Sandblaster]

It was a epic ride!
We left Friday Morning from Springfield after a nice breakfast and 3.5 hours later we were there..
When we arrived on Friday the wind was blowing so hard we could see the dust storm coming for at least 30 miles...
At first we thought it might be a forest fire blowing in smoke but it was the wrong color.
It was clear that we were in trouble... The truck was shaking from the force of the wind.
Sand was blowing so hard that we had to wear our goggles to keep the sand out of eyes..
In fact, just the time it took me to get the goggles off my helmet and on my face I had sand caked into my eyes.
5 days later my left eye is still healing up.
But I digress.... We unloaded the bikes and gear and waited for about a hour.
Finally I couldn't stand it any more so I geared up, fired up the green beast, and started throwing sand into the air.... Oh Yeah....
If there wasn't a sand storm before I got there, there was after I left
I found that if I stayed on the north side of the dunes the wind, dust, and sand wasn't so bad..
I have rode at Christmas Valley many times so I know how different the sand can be.
This time the sand was the hardest I have ever seen.
For the most part a knob would have been fine but all I had was a paddle so I tore it up
Rode for about 4 hours and had a blast.
When I got back to the Christmas Valley Desert Inn http://www.cv-desertinn.com/ I had to dig out about 10 lbs of sand from my nose and ears
I left most of it outside so the owner of the place didn't get too mad at me....
Took a hot shower, watched something on TV, had dinner, and hit the sack.

More to come...

[Sandblaster]

Saturday morning we got up and headed to The Feed Barn for breakfast...
There is no web site that I could find but it is right on the HWY in the middle of town, South side of the road.
Sorry, no pics..

the feed barn.JPG (38.9 KiB) Viewed 8012 times

Since I had eaten there before I knew what to expect.... Good food and a honest price.
The coffee is excellent and it's serve yourself..
Different, but it works

After breakfast we headed to the dunes which is about 25-30 minutes from town depending on how you drive...
We parked at the Junipers camp ground with only one other vehicle there..
The weather was much better on Saturday.
Only a little wind and no sand storms beside the ones we created
We cranked up our machines and proceeded to make a half loop around the riding area.
Heading east we followed the perimeter and hit what we call the Jeep trail which is a windy little sandy road that heads generally south.
I hate quad ruts but since the sand was so soft we really didn't have too much trouble.
Once the Jeep trail empties out onto the dunes again we headed West and slightly north to an area we call the Canyon.
It's a really fun area that winds in between some dunes so you have banks as high as 50 feet on either side which you can just rail on....
Once that empties out you can ride back to the starting point which is only a few miles away.
By this time (Approximately 2 hours) it was pouring rain.
So we headed back to our camp and made plans for later on.
Since our friends all had campers, toy haulers, or motor homes, and all I had was our Tundra we headed back into town which gave us time to get some more gas for those that didn't bring enough and we picked up some Rib Eyes for a BBQ that night.
By the time we made it back to camp the rain had stopped and we rode till nearly dark.
My Dad was riding his 05 YZ450F and ran it out of gas about 5 miles from camp.
He is use to riding his 03 WR450F which has a bigger tank.
I had so much fun I almost ran my KX500 out of fuel on that run...
Thankfully some friend there had a Razor and they went back to camp and brought back some fuel...
After the ride I discovered that my front tire was completely flat...
No wonder it felt strange on the hard pack... but not too bad on the softer areas as long as I kept the speeds under 50MPH or so.
That night we had dinner around a fire with all our friends..... Good times.....
Then we headed back to town to our nice clean motel room for showers and bed time..... zzzzz

[Sandblaster]

Sunday Morning up bright and early we headed to Lakeside Terrace Restaurant Motel RV Park for breakfast.
http://www.lakesideterracecv.com/


Again, I have eaten here many times in the past so I knew what to expect... Good food, Good service, and fair prices.
And, I LOVE their bacon

[Sandblaster]

Hit the trails to make a loop around the perimeter, just me and my Dad..
We wanted to do a fast loop so we took off and blew through the trails.
About half way around the loop my bike was handling really strange.
I kept riding it cause I didn't have anything to work on it with me
Then, as I was building up some speed and turning a corner I noticed that my front tire was trying to roll off the bead.
So, I slowed down and rode it easy the rest of the way.
Finally made it back to camp and discovered that both tires were flat..
All in all we had a great time with some good friends.
Can't wait for our next ride..